Coalition of Bar Associations of Color Resolution on Native American Academic Law Fraud

In July of 2011, the Coalition of Bar Associations of Color adopted a resolution calling for the tightening of standards on who constitutes a “Native American” at Law Schools. The coalition has as one of its constituent members the Native American Bar Association.

The resolution was passed to ask law schools to require further proof of their “Native American status”. They contend that law schools, such as Harvard, have been complicit in the committing of academic fraud to pad their minority status numbers. Of particular note are these two parts of the resolution, which can be seen in it’s entirety embedded below.

WHEREAS, non-Native Americans who have no affiliation with any Native community nor any Native identification will be deterred from committing ethnic fraud with the requirement that they provide additional information regarding their identification with the Native American community;

WHEREAS, the ABA and ABA accredite law schools perpetuate this academic ethnic fraud by refusing to require sufficient documentation of Native American citizenship and refusing to enforce academic fraud, despite decades of requests by the Native American legal community;

The Native American legal community takes very seriously false claims of Native American heritage. It would be interesting to see their take on this controversy given their history of fighting academic fraud.